The following invention concerns combat sports with blades, in particular the sport of fencing, and leads to a system for hit detection and signaling in fencing.
Currently, a hit detection system for the epee used in international fencing tournaments must be designed to meet the following specifications:
detection of a hit by simple closing of the tip with timing constraints
cancellation of a hit to ground
cancellation of a hit on the opponent""s guard
hit discrimination: two successive hit are declared xe2x80x9csimultaneousxe2x80x9d if they are detected within less than a 50 ms delay.
All of these requirements are satisfied perfectly in current systems where the fencers and the strip are wired permanently to the central detection and signaling device.
The major drawback of these current systems lies with the necessary use of a metallic strip.
The strips assembled with metal plates used in all of the major tournaments are very expensive, heavy and require tedious installation work. They are too expensive for most fencing clubs.
Such a system is represented in FIG. 1 of the appended drawings (the hatched zones represent the conductive surfaces).
Furthermore, several wireless hit detection and signaling systems for fencing have been implemented lately. These systems are based in part or in totality on the technical concepts described in documents FR-A-2 280 407 and FRA-A-2 739 787.
The devices developed in accordance with these documents present the drawbacks discussed hereafter, in particular for the epee which happens to be the main weapon in fencing both in terms of number of registered fencers and overall importance.
The known systems derived from document FR-A-2 280 407 use capacitive coupling of the human body to ground. Each fencer is equipped with a portable radiofrequency transmitter/receiver system and the two systems are weakly coupled to one another, because each portable is connected directly to the body of the fencer, himself coupled to ground. Hence, these portables are able to communicate with eachother after the appropriate amplification of the generated signals.
However, the drawbacks of these devices are numerous:
Capacitive coupling through the human body is very unstable and difficult to quantify. It changes with the fencer and with sweat. What""s more, with jumping, the amount of coupling decreases tremendously requiring a different setting for each device.
Cancellation of a hit is done by introducing a very powerful modulation into the strip. The efficiency of this signal depends on the degree of coupling between the strip and ground. If the strip is connected directly to ground, the signal doesn""t go through. If the strip is on the floor, enormous power may be required to generate the appropriate signal. In any case, computer simulations and experience show that this hit cancellation is uncertain.
Hit cancellation on the guard is very perturbed as soon as the body of the fencer is in contact with his own weapon, through a sweaty glove for example.
The use of radio is necessary to implement hit detection with all the drawbacks that go along with the use of this technology: possibility of perturbations from a distance leading eventually to jamming of the tournament etc . . . . Radio is ill-suited to real time data processing as have shown various examples of implementation that have all been failures.
Even if all the previous drawbacks were entirely eliminated, the system would still be tied down by a structural drawback: the direct connection of the device to the fencer""s skin. As a consequence of this implementation, the system is unable to pass any medical certification.
The device described in document FR-A-2 739 787 (and according to the corresponding document EP-A-0 768 101) was developed to eliminate most of the drawbacks mentioned above with respect to the system described in document FR-A-2 280 407.
In the system described in document FR-A-2 739 787, there is no longer any direct coupling with the body and hence the system ca no longer be jammed since discrimination is obtained through signals transmitted in the strip.
It does entail however the following drawbacks:
Necessary use of a floating strip obtained by isolation or placement on a raised podium,
Possible delay between the time when the fencer registers a hit and when he falls back to ground in the case of a hit occuring when the fencer is above the strip.
The goal of the invention that follows is the elimination, if not all, of most of the drawbacks addressed previously and to put forward a system that can easily lead to a wired system that gets rid of the strip or a wireless implementation with a very reliable hit detection.
Hence, the goal of the current invention is the implementation of a hit detection and signaling system for fencing, in particular for the epee, that is composed for each fencer first of a entirely conductive outfit followed by a conductive mask eventually endowed with an integrated luminous signaling device and finally a weapon, in particular an epee, comprising a guard made of a non conductive material or covered by an insulating material and whose tip is conductive, the outfit and the mask on one hand and at least the tip of the weapon on the other for each fencer are connected separately to a hit detection unit either in the form of a central detection and signaling unit through wires or a portable unit on each fencer connected to the luminous signaling unit in the mask and to conductive soles of the shoes worn by the given fencer.